In numbers: First private school census in Sindh

03-08-2023
Flavia Gkioka
Team Pakistan Researcher
Global Human Rights Defence

Today’s News Burst is about children and their education. It is unfortunately a fact that the education system in Pakistan is severely underworking, and the illiteracy percentage is very high. The Sindh government has gathered data on private schools in the province of Karachi, showing that several educational institutes have yet to provide basic facilities to students. In the report, it was revealed that the province has 12,809 private schools of which 1,073 are closed and 11,736 are functional. Breaking down the data of the functional schools, the report mentioned that 11,387 have co-education (where girls and boys study together), 175 are restricted to females, and 174 only enroll male students. Moreover, according to the report out of 11,736 functional schools in the province, 4,464 lack science labs, and 4,433 of them don't have libraries. It was also found that schools lack basic facilities.  It is shocking to know that students in 187 private institutions are studying without having the facility of drinking water, 146 don't have toilets and 350 of them are operating without an electricity connection. It is also crucial to report that boys have outnumbered girls in terms of enrolment, as 54.22% (more than 2.1 million) of the total children are male and 45.77% (more than 1.8 million) are female. Female teachers outnumber their male counterparts as the former constitute 76.13% of the total teaching staff and males comprise only 23.86%. 

Source and further reading: In numbers: First private school census in Sindh (geo.tv)